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Monday, December 4, 2017

Facebook to Hire 800 New Workers in London

Facebook Inc. is to hire 800 new staff in
London, expanding its U.K. headquarters despite coming under increasing
scrutiny from the country’s lawmakers.

The new hires -- predominately in engineering
roles and to be recruited over the next year -- will bring the number of staff
working for Facebook in the U.K. to 2,300. The social media company will also
offer space in its new office to U.K.-based startups as part of an accelerator
program, the company said Monday.

Facebook’s expansion comes at a time when
Britain is so alarmed by the extent and scale of Russian interference in U.K.
politics via social media networks that its lawmakers are getting ready to
interrogate Silicon Valley giants -- including Facebook and Twitter Inc. -- in
Washington.

Facebook joins a number of large tech companies
doubling down on their presence in London, despite the ongoing uncertainty
about the U.K.’s pending exit from the European Union.

"It’s a sign of confidence in our country
that innovative companies like Facebook invest here," U.K. Chancellor
Philip Hammond said in a statement.

London will be Facebook’s largest engineering
hub outside the U.S., according to the
statement.

The U.K. is currently lobbying hard for tech
talent. The government plans to double the number of visas available to highly
skilled workers, including technology-savvy candidates. Facebook, Snap Inc. and
Google all announced plans to increase hiring in the U.K., while Apple Inc. is
leasing about 500,000 square-feet of office space at Battersea Power Station on
the south bank of London’s River Thames.

Among European countries, the U.K. was the most
pessimistic about the future of the European technology industry, according to
a report last week from London-based venture capital firm Atomico, with 18
percent of respondents -- which included thousands of founders and investors --
saying they were less optimistic than they were a year earlier. Over the last
12 months, it’s also become harder for
British startups to raise new funding, according to 32 percent of founders
questioned.